Vino Rosso
by La Reine Noire
Summary: It should have been the greatest day of her life, the brightest and most glorious, but all she could see were other days. Days not blighted by her own hand. Atia, spoilers for all episodes.


It should have been the greatest day of her life, the brightest and most glorious, but all she could see were other days. Days not blighted by her own hand. _Hubris_, the Greeks called it. Overweening pride always carried a price. Atia knew that, as everybody did, and yet she had striven, had thrown aside all in her path without mercy, had shattered her daughter and twisted her son, and all for what? Garlands, streamers, petals littering the stones of the Forum. A golden circlet of laurel leaves for Gaius Octavian Cæsar, her once-precious boy.

(High events as these strike those that make them)

Still her precious boy, deep within. She remembered so many days, bittersweet now with the knowledge of what had come after. Like the dregs of even the sweetest wine. The first time the midwife placed him in her arms, he had looked at her without crying and she had loved him beyond all reason. Even then, he was a mystery, her quiet baby who saw far more than he ought to have done. Not like his sister, whose face revealed everything. Octavia had always been a dreadful liar. Not Octavian. She knew she hadn't imagined his youth, when he'd been a good, honest boy, sweet and loyal. Unless she had imagined it, unless he was a far more accomplished liar than she'd ever conceived.

She hardly recognised him now. He rarely smiled even when he was little, but now he was a statue, cold and unchanging.

It was her doing, of course. No point in dwelling on that; there was nothing to be done for it, but she was to blame. What choice did she have, really? He'd never have survived otherwise, or so she told herself. Yes, she had used him and he had used her in return, sending her to Alexandria to be humiliated by the man she loved. Octavian had had his revenge. Surely now he was satisfied. Now he might leave her in peace.

All she had ever wanted was to be the first woman in Rome; it was what she had fought for, lied for, schemed for. If not one Cæsar, then another. She had sat beside the first Cæsar on the day of his great triumph, had watched Octavian in the purple robes of the Gods' anointed stand tall and solemn beside his uncle. Oh, she had been so proud of him then! Her darling baby boy growing into a man to be reckoned with. And Antony at Cæsar's other hand, unaccountably serious that day--but she would not think of Antony. That way madness lay. And yet there was a strange grief in Atia as she studied her son and knew that he had no heart. That somewhere along the way he had set it aside with other childish things.

(A more unhappy lady, if this division chance, ne'er stood between, praying for both parts)

Not so, Octavia. One might claim she had too much heart, as her mother knew well. Octavian had betrayed her too, as he had betrayed everybody except dead Cæsar. Even Atia had betrayed Octavia at the beginning when she sent the Jew after her daughter's former husband. It had been for her own good. Surely Octavia knew that now. She had not thought of her often in those early, heady days of Cæsar's ascent to the highest seat in Rome. She ought to have done so, ought to have spoken to Octavia, listened to her, but she had thought too much of other things. And Octavia had turned to Servilia, of all the accursed people.

Had she loved Servilia? Atia could not say; in fact, she wondered if Octavia knew herself. But Servilia had used her daughter ill. For that, if for nothing else, Atia would never forgive her; would have tortured her twice over and again.

That had been the turning point, Atia was quite sure. Realising that Servilia had found a way to strike at the very heart of their family, and that could not be countenanced. Although another day came to mind as well--_I would tear down the stars for you_--when Octavian's impassioned young friend had professed his love for Octavia. Any other mother would have teased her daughter; Atia had tried, but Octavia's embarrassment had forestalled her. Of course the two had become lovers. Atia could have told her it was inevitable, but Octavia had never asked. And it had been good for Octavia, really. A nice young man with a soldier's body and a soldier's lusts was precisely what the girl had needed. A pity he'd turned out to be such a disappointment in the end.

And one last day, blighted by falling ash and blood and the echo of words sealed by death--_Send her bitterness and despair for all of her life_. The only person she had not blamed for that nonsensical marriage was Octavia herself. Only a fool would have considered it anything other than coercion. And Atia was not a fool. But the irony lay in the fact that marriage to her mother's lover had somehow drawn them closer, united them against the Octavian they no longer recognised. _I don't know what I shall do if you give up_. Such strange words from the daughter who had happily hurled curses at her.

She hadn't expected that. Octavia, so slight and fragile and liable to break at any provocation, had grown up. When had it happened? She supposed that was her fault as well. Although some of the blame could be laid at Octavian's door who betrayed her for ambition, and at the fool Agrippa's who betrayed her for her brother. And no doubt Servilia as well, may she rot in Pluto's shadow.

Atia almost wished Servilia could have been here on this day. Some part of her wanted to gloat still, after all these years, and much as it galled her to admit it, there had been some comfort in knowing that no matter how the wheel of Fortuna spun, dear Servilia's deepest desire was to see Atia raped by dogs in the Forum. Nobody could take her place, try as they might. There was something so pure and crystalline in hatred like that. She had thrived on it, although surely the Gods would laugh if it had ever truly occurred to her to _miss_ Servilia.

(Fortune knows we scorn her most when most she offers blows)

She thought of Servilia so often these days; how could she not, under the circumstances? _It's important to me that I be the first to tell you what has happened_. Knives in the Forum, blood on the senate floor, Cæsar slaughtered by a mob of white-robed Senators who saved the final killing thrust for her precious Brutus.

It really was all Servilia's fault, now that she thought about it. If Cæsar hadn't died, none of this would have happened. He would have made Octavian his heir--really, how could he have done otherwise?--and Antony would never have left Rome, never fallen into the hands of that _creature_. But Servilia had wanted revenge. Revenge on Atia for turning Cæsar against her, on Cæsar for being too weak to protest. Not weak, Atia would have argued, merely politic. But Servilia never could understand the difference, even at the end--_Atia of the Julii, I call for justice_--she harped on justice when all she had ever wanted was revenge.

_I want to see you run_. But she hadn't. It had all gone horribly wrong. She wondered, unceasingly, if the other woman had understood her son in the end. She had known it was Servilia's guiding hand behind Brutus' treachery, had warned Cæsar herself, though he had chosen not to listen. After all, she had done the same. _Crush Antony and his queen_, she'd told Octavian. Having witnessed Servilia's fate, surely she ought to have known better.

But her son had returned in triumph. Therein lay the difference, or so one might think, to gaze at its glittering surface, to watch Octavian, her beautiful golden boy on his dais, _Imperator_ in all but name. She was the first woman in Rome now, no matter what that snide little bitch Livia thought. _Far better women than you have sworn to do the same_. It wasn't Atia's fault that she had won, that her son had turned out the better of the two. The crowds were screaming themselves hoarse for Cæsar, _her_ Cæsar, as they never screamed for Brutus.

Poor Servilia. But poor Atia as well, who had not known that one could triumph so very completely after death as Servilia could not in life. _Let her taste nothing but ashes and iron. Oh Servilia, you have won in the end. I have everything I wanted except my heart. And it was my own son tore it out._

She could feel Octavian's opaque, unreadable eyes on her now and she knew what was to come. Steeling herself, she watched the bodies as they were brought forth and willed herself to show nothing. At least he was unrecognisable now, the skin shrunk fast against the bones from the blazing Egyptian sun. She could pretend he was somebody else. Somebody to whom she could be indifferent.

(There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned)

There was a day even sweeter now in memory than it had been in fact. At the time, she had thought only of minutiæ, of where to put Servilia so Cæsar wouldn't see her, wouldn't want her after all those years. How to bring Octavian to Cæsar's notice, how to hide the fact that she'd nearly married Octavia to Pompey, the Gods help her. And yet it had all vanished at Antony's smile. _Let me die in your arms_, the first words he spoke to her, with that lazy, reckless, utterly devastating smile.

But no, he had chosen the arms of an Egyptian whore and died by his own sword when she, Atia, would have given him the world.

Ah, Antony. The Gods alone knew how much she loved him, how poisonous and corrosive such love could be. Infatuation, Octavia had called it. How little she had known then. Antony had been so blessedly simple, so...refreshing, really. She had not known how much she craved that sort of perverse impulsiveness until she met him. He had made her thoughtless, turned her into a giddy girl she thought she'd left behind aeons before. The bastard. She would never forgive him, not till the day she died, and no doubt not even afterward. Atia had always been particularly adept when it came to holding grudges. One need only ask Servilia. _Far better women than you have sworn to do the same. Go, look at them now._ The memory of the words almost made her smile, though not quite. Octavian would be pleased at her forbearance; foolish smiling was, after all, impolitic.

Antony had cared little for politics. She supposed that was why Octavian won in the end. That, and her son's apparently infinite patience. It certainly hadn't come from her. She and Antony had understood one another. Or so she had thought.

_I will send for you. On my life, I promise_. She knew all along that he was a liar and yet she had trusted him. There was a part of her that wished so deeply to believe that trollop had bewitched him. The Egyptians were a cunning race; everybody knew that. But she had known Antony, knew the very air he breathed was suffused with lies.

She had hoped the two half-breeds would look like their mother, alien creatures that they were. Both of them--curse them--had their father's eyes. And Helios had his smile. But she would not think of them now. She watched the cart, laden with Egyptian spoils, until it vanished.

(I have immortal longings in me)

She met Octavian's eyes now, and for once, he was the first to look away.

_Far better women than you. Go, look at them now._

Perhaps that was all that mattered in the end. She was Atia of the Julii and she would live and love and, be damned to them all, she would endure.

**NB:** Written for the Livejournal Femgenficathon 2007, Prompt #140. _Good days are to be gathered like grapes, to be trodden and bottled into wine and kept for age to sip at ease beside the fire. If the traveller has vintaged well, he need trouble to wander no longer; the ruby moments glow in his glass at will._ -- Freya Stark. Quotations in parentheses are from _Antony and Cleopatra_ by William Shakespeare. Thank you so much to LadyShrew for the last-minute beta!


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